Obama defended his proposed health care overhaul, including a key point of the various health care bills on Capitol Hill: mandating that people get health insurance to share the cost burden fairly among all.

So some people are going to be forced to buy insurance they don't want, or fined if they don't (even if they can't afford it, as in Massachusetts). People with expensive conditions will be subsidized by higher premiums for people who would otherwise pay less or self-insure. That's not what he says, but that's what it amounts to.

He is quoted as saying this:

Telling people to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase, Obama told ABC's "This Week."

"What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore," said Obama. "Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase."

So it's not a tax, it's a mandatory insurance-mediated cost-shift. There is no alternative; you can give up your car if it costs too much, but there's no equivalent escape hatch for Obamacare. Or is Obama going to allow people to file as "dead" for tax purposes?